I went to Grundy Center and bought milk

This afternoon was a “fun day” for me. I took a trip down to Grundy Center to see my friend Lisa of Gracious Acres fame. And I bought milk. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

photo copyright BP Photography 🙂

Lisa is one of the most generous and thoughtful people I know. When I arrived at her place she had a little goodie bag waiting for me, with a cute little old-thyme gardening postcard on a plaque and a t-shirt from my very favorite scrapbook artist.

We had a wonderful afternoon of exploring the little shops of Grundy Center, lots of talking and catching up. Lisa and I actually met because of this blog, when she responded to my plea last December for someone to buy beef from us. Such a short time ago, but it feels as if we’ve known each other for ever.

I’m sure I’m repeating myself here, but it’s just one of those friendships that “clicked” right away. We both have a passion for small farms and local agriculture, for saving old buildings, for scrapbooking, for chickens. And today shopping at the Farm & Fleet we discovered that we both utter the same little “hm”.

Yes, we shopped at Farm & Fleet and bought milk. We’re crazy, the two of us.

So one of the shops we stopped in has just started selling organic milk and meat products. (If I remember right it’s called Gems.) We got to talking milk, and when the clerk mentioned the name “Kalona” my head spun around like I was auditioning for a remake of Poltergeist.

“You have Kalona milk?!?” I exclaimed.

This is a milk I have only heard about. Drooled over. But have never been able to get my hot little hands on. It’s beyond organic. It’s vat pasteurized, and non-homogenized. I think it’s about as close as you can get to milk straight out of the bulk tank, without actually taking it straight out of the bulk tank. (Which is illegal in Iowa. ahem.)

So yes, I went to Grundy Center and bought a half-gallon of whole milk and a half-gallon of 1% milk. And a rag rug, and a picture frame. And then Lisa and her DH (and I do mean “dear”) and sweet daughter took me out for a most delicious supper. And I was so full I moaned the whole one-and-a-half hours home.

And I didn’t even get side-tracked by this: